{"id":38,"date":"2016-05-29T16:25:40","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T20:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intro-to-new-media.local\/?page_id=38"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:06:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T19:06:22","slug":"google","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/google\/","title":{"rendered":"Google"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image size-large wp-image-372\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-07-07-at-1.01.56-pm-1024x751.png\" alt=\"Google Images of Google Images\" class=\"wp-image-372\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Google Images of Google Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group lesson-block lesson-intro\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What to watch for<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After completing this lesson, you&#8217;ll be able to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Relate&nbsp;the history of Google and its products<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Outline Google\u2019s contributions to new media<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Describe Google\u2019s understanding of its own mission<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to overstate the importance of Google in the new media landscape. From their early days as&nbsp;<em>just<\/em> the world&#8217;s best search engine to their central place in the Alphabet conglomerate today, there&#8217;s so much to say about Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Required readings:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group lesson-block required-readings\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\ud83d\udcda &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/334801840-Our-History-in-Depth-Company-Google.pdf\">Our history in depth<\/a>&#8220;, Google<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em>(6,478 words \/ 33-38 minutes)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>A really useful, concise history of many of the major events in Google&#8217;s history. Since it&#8217;s on the company site<a href=\"#footnote-1-38\" id=\"note-1-38\" rel=\"footnote\">1<\/a>, we of course need to read it knowing that it&#8217;s going to be a bit whitewashed, but it&#8217;s still a great place to get a sense of where Google came from and the major milestones in its history (even though it stops in 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>These bits of the founding narrative are worth including verbatim: &#8220;<br>1995: Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford. Larry, 22, a U Michigan grad, is considering the school; Sergey, 21, is assigned to show him around.&nbsp;1996:&nbsp;Larry and Sergey begin collaborating on a search engine called BackRub. BackRub operates on Stanford servers for more than a year\u2014eventually taking up too much bandwidth.&nbsp;1997:&nbsp;Google.com is registered as a domain on September 15. The name\u2014a play on the word &#8220;googol,&#8221; a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros\u2014reflects Larry and Sergey&#8217;s mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It&#8217;s so great that Google got its first investment before it was actually incorporated.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The launch of Google AdWords in October 2000 marks the start of Google&#8217;s soon-to-be meteoric rise in profitability.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Eric Schmidt joins Google in March 2001 as the &#8220;grown-up&#8221; CEO to oversee Google&#8217;s growth (remember, neither of its cofounders have yet turned 30).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Shopping was born in December 2002 as &#8220;Froogle&#8221;. Google used to be a bit more fun and a whole lot less corporate.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google AdSense launched in March 2003, further adding to Google&#8217;s growing advertising business.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Near and dear to my heart, Google Books launched in December 2003.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Gmail is launched on April Fools&#8217; Day in 2004. Many people weren&#8217;t sure if it was a joke or not. Today, it has over 1 billion users.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The launch of Google Maps in February 2005 revolutionized online mapping applications. I should also add, on a personal note, that it was around this time that it became almost impossible not to be wildly enamored with Google as a web user. They were so far out in front of everyone else on the web, and it seemed like every six months or so they&#8217;d release another amazing free technology. Between Google&#8217;s web work at this time and Apple&#8217;s hardware work (iPod, greatly improved Macs, and the rumored imminent arrival of the iPhone), it was such an amazing time to be a tech nerd. (Or, really, just a human who liked technology.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In April 2005, the first video is uploaded to YouTube (not yet a part of Google).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>iGoogle launched in May 2005. You should look this up to get a sense of what it was. When it was end-of-lifed in November 2013, I was very, very sad. Now that I&#8217;m thinking about it, I still rather miss it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Analytics&#8217; launch in November 2005 offers an unprecedented free tool for understanding users&#8217; behavior on a web site. This is both a very good thing and the start (or at least an acceleration point) of a lot of creepy things.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Calendar launches in April 2006, and it&#8217;s awesome.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When Google acquires YouTube in October 2006, people think the roughly $1.6 billion acquisition is ludicrously expensive. It turns out to be an absolute steal.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Street View&#8217;s launch in May 2007 was another one of those&nbsp;<em>this-is-so-awesome-it&#8217;s-great-to-live-in-the-future<\/em> moments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google&#8217;s Android is announced in November 2007. The first devices won&#8217;t ship for nearly a year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Chrome, released in September 2008, immediately made every other browser on the market feel outdated and slow. (It kicked off the JavaScript performance revolution.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Voice&#8217;s launch in March 2009 (free online calling, voicemail transcriptions) continued the&nbsp;<em>hey-it&#8217;s-the-future-everything-is-free-and-amazing<\/em> party.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In July 2009, Google Docs (the result of the acquisition of a company called Writely) leaves beta.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The September 2009 unveiling of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange is a huge deal if you&#8217;re in online advertising (or own Google stock).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>October 2009 release of Google Maps Navigation more or less immediately tanks the GPS-as-discrete-device market.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It seems like it&#8217;s been there forever, but Google Instant (the thing where search results appear as you type) launches in September 2010.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In July 2011, Larry Page returns to the CEO position he last held a decade ago. Eric Schmidt remains as chairman<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In May 2011, the first Chromebooks are announced.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google+ (which no one much uses, really, but which more or less achieved Google&#8217;s goal of building an identity layer to compete with Facebook) launches.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Play becomes the new name for Android Market in March 2012.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Project Glass launches in April 2012. The moniker &#8220;glasshole&#8221; follows shortly thereafter.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Drive (a revamped Google Docs) also launches in April 2012.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>June 2012&#8217;s release of Google Now (giving you information you didn&#8217;t know you needed before you even look for it) presages many of the company&#8217;s efforts into artificial intelligence and machine learning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google Fiber&#8217;s launch in November 2012 makes everyone outside of Kansas City painfully aware of just how terrible their internet connection is.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In September 2013, Android crosses the 1 billion device activation milestone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google acquires Nest in January 2014. Stay tuned to see how this one turns out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Stop for a minute and think about how many of the things just listed are a part of your daily (or at least weekly or monthly) life, even if you&#8217;re not an Android user. Like I said, it&#8217;s really hard to overstate Google&#8217;s&nbsp;contributions to our online lives. And man, that 2004-2009 period is really just completely remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group lesson-block required-readings\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\ud83d\udcda &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Google\">Google<\/a>&#8220;, Wikipedia<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><em>(9,533 words \/ 48-60 minutes)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that you have your bearing from the official Google history, take your time as you wander around this article. Skim quickly through what seems familiar; camp out and dig deeper on what&#8217;s new and what catches your attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Google&#8217;s mission statement is &#8220;to organize the world&#8217;s information and make it universally accessible and useful.&#8221; They&#8217;re not doing a bad job of it, either.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For a while, Google&#8217;s unofficial motto was &#8220;Don&#8217;t be evil.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Google&#8217;s original innovation (PageRank (after Larry Page, not the term&nbsp;<em>web page<\/em>, also nicknamed&nbsp;BackRub) is based on the concept of determining a page&#8217;s relative importance based on the number and quality of sites that link to it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This bit is crucial: &#8220;On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a holding company, Alphabet Inc., with Google as its leading subsidiary. Google will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet&#8217;s Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Reading through this article, you really get a sense of the breadth of Google&#8217;s interests, ambition, and operations\u2014quite a contrast (not necessarily better or worse\u2014just different) to Apple&#8217;s tightly-focused culture.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Spend some time reading and thinking about Google&#8217;s concept&nbsp;of 20% time for its employees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ll conclude with what&#8217;s quickly becoming a familiar refrain: there&#8217;s so much more to say, learn, and talk about with Google, but I think this gives us a&nbsp;quite reasonably solid foundation upon which to build. Go read more on your own,&nbsp;and have fun in your discussion groups!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group lesson-block additional-readings\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Non-required readings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/intl\/en\/about\/datacenters\/gallery\/#\/\">Where the Internet lives<\/a>&#8220;, Google<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Click around this look at Google&#8217;s data centers to&nbsp;get a super-compelling look at the physical reality of what makes Google tick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2016\/03\/sadness-beauty-watching-googles-ai-play-go\/\">The Sadness and Beauty of Watching Google&#8217;s AI Play Go<\/a>&#8221; by Cade Metz<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Reading this article provides an interesting lens through which to understand Google&#8217;s machine learning efforts, which seem to be the thing Google views as its foundation for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group lesson-block discussion-questions\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discussion Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>List all the Google services you\u2019ve used in the past 24 hours.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Do you have a favorite Google product \/ do you remember your introduction to a favorite Google product?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you had to pick one Google product you couldn\u2019t live without, which would it be? Why?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One thing the lesson didn\u2019t spend much time discussing: criticisms of Google. Spend some time reading and thinking about criticisms and critiques of Google, then discuss them here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Words on \/ reading time for this page: 1,479 words \/ 7-9 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Words in \/ reading time for required readings: 16,011 words \/ 81-98 minutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Total words in \/ reading time for this lesson: 16,791 words \/ 88-107 minutes<\/p>\n<div class=\"footnotes\"><hr \/><ol><li id=\"footnote-1-38\" class=\"footnote\"><p>Actually, it&#8217;s a PDF of something that used to be on the company site that Google has since taken down.<a href=\"#note-1-38\" class=\"footnote-return\">&#8617;<\/a><\/p><\/li><!--\/#footnote-1.footnote--><\/ol><\/div><!--\/#footnotes-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What to watch for After completing this lesson, you&#8217;ll be able to: It&#8217;s hard to overstate the importance of Google in the new media landscape. From their early days as&nbsp;just the world&#8217;s best search engine to their central place in the Alphabet conglomerate today, there&#8217;s so much to say about Google. Required readings: \ud83d\udcda &#8220;Our &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/google\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Google<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-38","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940,"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/38\/revisions\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmi.cool\/intro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}